"There must be some way out of here," said the journalists to BJ Clinton,"There's too much confusion, I can't get no food.Jongie, he drink my wine, soldiers dig earthworms,None of them along the demilitarized zone know what any of it is worth."

"No reason to get excited," BJ, he kindly spoke,"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

All along the watchtower, BJ kept the viewWhile all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too, because they had no shoes.Outside in the distance Hillary did growl,Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

"Every time I see him, I think of him singing "I'm so lonely". Great movie.

Figured you were speaking of the Il-nasty one, and not our former President.

This song, is the more obvious choice for immediately springing to mind when confronted with him.

When the reports say that Clinton picked them up on a private jet, why am I picturing some Tony Stark style number with stripper pole?

Great that they're getting returned, Ling and Lee, but what's the final price?

(can't you just imagine Pres. Clinton saying during the flight home, "after all I did for y'all, there's something y'all can do for me...")

If the price was just these stilted photo-ops, that's acceptable.

I suspect if reaction is positive, the Obama folks will take all the credit, if it turns out the price was steep and reaction is poor, I bet there will be many fingers pointed from the White House towards Foggy Bottom.

(and Foggy Bottom is the location of the State Department offices, not some new nickname for Hillary)

"Good job by Clinton. I guess lardass Al Gore couldn't be bothered to go over there and spring the two reporters from his own vanity TV network.

best...comment...ever (read as Comicbook Guy from the Simpsons)

A couple of quick thoughts on this. I would heap kudos on Slick Willy for this if I hadn't lived through the 90's and this here current decade, in which only a handful of truly selfless and un-triangulated actions can be attributed to Der Schlikmeister. Perhaps this is one of them, in which case we'll have to start counting his good deeds on two hands.

Secondly, what is it that NK has been screaming for over the past 15 years? Bi-lateral talks with the US. They just got them, defacto or not.

@garage mahal

I assume you're dovetailing with the rest of the left over the apparent growing number of people showing up pissed to Q&A's with their reps. Why is that only the left get to protest loudly? Why is it when there's a bunch of leftist rallies going on, its a grass-roots movement, but when it's coming from the right, it's a mob?

America...America...America, FUCK YEAH!Coming again, to save the mother fucking day yeah,America, FUCK YEAH!Freedom is the only way yeah,Terrorist your game is through cause now you have to answer too,America, FUCK YEAH!So lick my butt, and suck on my balls,America, FUCK YEAH!What you going to do when we come for you now,it’s the dream that we all share; it’s the hope for tomorrow

Oh look everybody, it's another liberal pussy bemoaning how much sand he has in his vagina and that right wingers put it there. Garage, when are you going to learn the golden rule of stupidity; It's better to keep your gob shut and be thought of as a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

That ship has long since sailed. There is no measure of the stupidity of those that stand up and cheer for the biggest transfer of power from the individual to the state in history..

What does that even mean? What power has been taken away from you and handed over to the "state"? And why are you here and not out with the rest of the Birther Brigades marching with signs asking for a birth certificate?

Relations with the North deteriorated rapidly under the Bush administration, with the North renouncing the 1994 nuclear agreement, harvesting enough plutonium for approximately eight nuclear weapons and conducting a nuclear test.

I know the narrative the author is trying to push here, but it doesn't line up too well with the facts. Relations with North Korea brightened (slightly) 1998-2000 because of the Sunshine policy pursued by Kim Dae-Jung (and because we were starting from a local nadir after the missile tests in 1998), not by virtue of any efforts undertaken by the Clinton administration. Indeed, if you look at the sequence of events, it's clear that in 2000, relations with North Korea worsened as a result of North Korean frustration with the Clinton administration's (entirely defensible) foot-dragging on the Light Water Reactor we promised them back in 1994. In April 2000, for example, North Korea removed about half of their personnel from the Kumho LWR site. The Bush II administration went forward with development at the LWR site until October 2002, when North Korea admitted that it had an undeclared uranium enrichment program. In November, KEDO suspended shipments of fuel oil (intended, theoretically, to replace the energey North Korea would have got from the Yongbyon facility), prompting North Korea to kick out the IAEA from Yongbyon (December 2002), and ultimately to withdraw from the NPT (January 2003), which they'd been violating with their uranium program anyway. It really wasn't a function of the Bush II administration -- it's hard to imagine the Clinton administration behaving differently in response to that kind of information. Indeed, the Clinton administration would probably have continued not-taking-seriously the sham confidence-building exercises in Kumho.

What power has been taken away from you and handed over to the "state"

...to be part of the health care issue. In fact, I would consider it THE biggest issue right now regarding individual vs federal authority.

Second...

"No liberals I know of, or read anywhere, ever bought into that nonsense."

...lol...I don't even know where to start with that one other than to suggest that you don't know about or read any other liberals.

And you still didn't answer my question, so fine. I'll rephrase. If I'm concerned about the consolidation of federal power at the cost of the states and individual liberty, does that make me lockstep with the Birthers?

Need some examples Scott. What liberals were/are Truthers? I don't know how to respond to the powers that are being taken away from you on the health care "issue". Nothing has been enacted, for starters.

As the snow fliesOn a cold and gray North Korean Ghetto mornin'Two little baby journalists cryIn the North Korean GhettoAnd his wife cries', God, she cries a lotCause if there's one thing that she don't needIt's another hungry intern to feedIn the North Korean GhettoPeople, don't you understandThe journalists need a helping handOr they'll be eaten by an angry young populationTake a look at you and me,Are we too blind to see,Do we simply turn our headsAnd look the other wayWell the world turnsAnd a hungry North Korean Ghetto with a runny nosePlays in the street as the cold wind blowsIn the North Korean GhettoAnd their hunger burnsSo BJ starts to roam the streets at nightThat Clinton, he's always roaming the streetsProbably looking for actionIn The North Korean Ghetto

"Need some examples Scott. What liberals were/are Truthers? I don't know how to respond to the powers that are being taken away from on the health care "issue". Nothing has been enacted, for starters."

I'll get you some examples shortly on the WTC liberal thing. When I do present them to you, will you admit that you're wrong?

And let me get this straight. Your idea of the process of republican (little R) governance is to wait until they pass the laws, erect the bureaucracy to support the new laws, and THEN do something about it?

I suppose you wait until after you pay for and move into a new house before checking to see if it's condemned?

Mr. Obama never had time to get talks off the ground with the North before it conducted a second nuclear test and terminated the one significant deal it struck with the Bush administration. It is in the process of restarting its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon.

This is also a truly bizarre bit of covering for Obama here. Or rather, the Obama administration's diplomatic posture.

The 6 party talks were ongoing in 2008. There's no getting talks off the ground -- they hit a snag in December/January over a few issues where North Korea refused to yield, but they were still ongoing.

Indeed, 2008 looked like an exceptionally good year for US-North Korean relations. True, it was purchased at the expense of the US folding like a cheap house of cards on all kinds of issues, but the diplomatic signals were broadly encouraging. In May 2008, North Korea handed over extensive documentation on their nuclear program. They demolished a cooling tower at the Yongbyon facility in June 2008, in a purported show of good faith, and made additional disclosure of their nuclear programs to China. Further progress on verification issues was made in October 2008.

The fact that this was all prelude to another nuclear detonation and a bunch of missile tests in early 2009 makes clear what should long ago have been perfectly obvious -- that North Korea just plays us for fools in the diplomatic game. Contra the article, Obama could have continued the Bush-era 6-party talks, if he had been on the ball (they didn't resume missile launches until April, and didn't detonate the second nuclear device until May), but it wouldn't have mattered.

Good job by Clinton. I guess lardass Al Gore couldn't be bothered to go over there and spring the two reporters from his own vanity TV network.

In fairness to former VP Gore, ABC News is reporting that Gore sought out former President Clinton's help in getting the journalists released. You must admit, a former president does have more prominence (and potential propaganda value) than a former vice president.

I think it probably is unwise to send Clinton to retrieve two prisoners who never should have been in jail in the first place (and the deal already was made before Clinton arrived), but I give Clinton credit for looking glum in the photograph. It would have been inappropriate for him to be flashing his politician's smile in such circumstances.

Pish posh. Roosevelt I got one in 1906. One of the Gascoyne-Cecils got it in 1937 -- I assume he was a Conservative, since his father was, and his family always are. Dr. Strangelove got it in 1973.

All too often, though, it's just a means of rewarding people who could have been monstrously evil, if they wanted to, for forbearing, at least for a little while. See, e.g. Gorbachev, in 1990, F.W. de Klerk in 1993, and Yasser Arafat in 1994. And -- if you're a liberal -- Dr. Strangelove in 1973.

A photo op in exchange for the release of two American journalists? I'm okay with that.

But more importantly this shows how frickin' easy it is to deal with North Korea. Many Conservatives jump up and down and push for tough actions and yet all it took was a former US President to show up shake hands [without a smile] to get them released. I know it took a bit more than this - but it shows we don't have to go the John Bolton route to get what we want.

Woman showed up to haul away firewood this morning - said she was so happy that Clinton got the criminals released. I asked her how much do you think we paid? A billion? She couldn't believe that we would pay to have hostages released. Yep, she's stupid and liberal and an Obama voter.

I hope that is all it took cause the last time Clinton made a deal with the Norks, they ended up with a nuclear bomb.

From a timeline perspective, I don't think that quite works. They had already removed plutonium from their reactor by 1991, before Clinton was President. And they didn't demonstrate a working bomb until 2006. What they did work on, in the wake of the 1994 Agreed Framework, was ballistic missile delivery systems. They also secretly started a uranium enrichment program.

The 2006 nuclear detonation came on the heels of a September 19, 2005 joint statement (resulting from the six-party talks) where North Korea "committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to IAEA safeguards."

So strictly speaking, it was the Bush II administration that negotiated a North Korean pledge to abandon nuclear weapons only to have North Korea reveal they had played us for suckers less than a year later by detonating a nuclear device. It's not like they weren't still working on the same sorts of projects under Clinton -- they just weren't quite as far along.